Michigan Stories

Today HolyCoast hits the road again, this time bound for Michigan and my niece's wedding in Rochester Hills on Friday. My daughter will be playing flute in the wedding, and the wife and I will be helping out where we can, so for the next week I'll be blogging from back there.

The original plan didn't include me making this trip, but after thinking about my wife and daughter driving around the Detroit area by themselves (see this item), I decided to go along. Michigan is in a one-state depression (15.2% unemployment) and there are some areas of Detroit that make Baghdad during shock-and-awe look like resorts.

I haven't been in Michigan since 1992, though for awhile there I was a frequent visitor. Since today will be dedicated to fighting through the TSA and airline hassles, I'll leave you with a long post full of Michigan stories from the previous travels.

From 1988 to 1995 I worked for a local bank that was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Michigan National Bank headquartered in Farmington Hills, MI, a suburb of Detroit. The data processing operations were in Lansing, and I spent quite a bit of time in both locations. Between the summer of 1989 and February 1992 I made 8 trips back there, including 5 in 1991 alone. I had some interesting moments along the way.

First Trip, First Class

In 1989 I was working for a guy who to this day was the best boss I ever had. He was a couple years younger than I was, a classic Type A, and somebody who could be very spontaneous. He was also an adherent of the policy "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission". He could get away with just about anything.

He decided in the summer of that year that we needed to go back to visit the parent company and take a look at their branch operations. I booked a flight for us out of LAX - coach, of course. I met him at the airport and when we approached the ticket counter he looked at me and said "I really don't want to fly coach, I'm going to upgrade us." With that he whipped out his credit card and moved us up to first class, on the company's dime of course. I never would have tried that, but he didn't even blink and nobody ever questioned his expense report.

I admired his style.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

In late 1990 the company made the decision to convert our data processing from a company we used in Fresno to the parent system in Lansing. Since I ran branch operations I was a key person in that process. In January of 1991 two of our data processing guys and me made the first of our conversion trips to Lansing. Us California boys weren't quite ready for the weather we encountered on that trip.

We had a plane change in Chicago, and the flight to Lansing would be on a Shorts 330, a twin-turboprop unpressurized commuter plane (we called them the "flying shoebox", pictured at left). There was no jetway to the plane, we had to walk from a bus to the aircraft. It was 15 degrees in Chicago that day, and to make things more interesting, there was no heat in the plane. The heat was generated by the engines and they couldn't be started until everyone was on board and the doors closed. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a second busload of passengers to get on before we got some heat.

The next morning we had an 8am meeting in Lansing and our hotel was about 15 minutes away. Being Californians we're used to just walking out to our cars and going, so we walked out of the hotel at about 7:45. It was 4 degrees and when we got to the car it was completely iced over. I managed to get the key in the lock and open the door, but it took at least 10 minutes with the defroster on max to clear the ice from the windshield so we could see well enough to drive. We learned something about Midwestern weather that morning.

The Luggable

We had what we thought at the time was an amazing piece of technology with us on that first conversion trip - a portable computer. It had cost a small fortune, featured an orange monochrome screen, and had to weigh 25 pounds. We called it "the luggable". I had to carry that beast for what seemed like two miles at O'Hare on the way back because we ended up flying two different airlines. To this day one arm is longer than the other.

Going to Lansing via Memphis

The second trip of 1991 was in March and I went by myself on that one. Once again Midwestern weather came into play.

I boarded my plane at John Wayne Airport and was informed that all flights to O'Hare were on gate hold because of bad weather in Chicago. We ended up sitting for an hour before our flight was finally released to leave.

The trip was fine up until about 30 minutes before we were scheduled to land. I could see massive storm clouds in the direction we were headed, and the pilot ordered the flight attendants to be seated even though we were still very high and quite far away. The plane plunged into the mess and we had a real roller-coaster ride going. It wasn't the worst turbulence I've ever been in, but it was close. After about 5 minutes of bumping around the plane banked rather hard and within another couple of minutes headed out of the clouds. The pilot informed us that tornadoes were now being reported in the O'Hare area and we were being sent to a holding area to wait out the storm.

We circled for probably 45 minutes when the plane banked away again and we found out we were going on a little excursion. The storms were still persisting over Chicago so we couldn't go there, the first alternate airport was St. Louis but the crosswinds there were above maximums for a 757 and we couldn't go there. The 2nd alternate was Memphis and that's where we were going - 90 flying minutes away.

We landed in Memphis and pulled up to the gate. Everybody got up to leave and the pilot informed us that Memphis wasn't used to handling 757s and they had parked us too far from the gate. In order to use the jetway they would have to move us 3 feet closer, but of course, we couldn't move until everyone sat down and put their seat belts back on. There was much grumbling as we all sat, the plane finally moved 3 feet closer to the terminal, and we all got up again after what had now become a 6 hour flight (7 if you count waiting at John Wayne). We could have flown to Hawaii and had 2 hours left over.

We ended up staying in Memphis for about 3 hours. During the wait I saw the pilot sitting at the gate and stopped to talk to him for a moment. He told me they had decided not to try to the Chicago approach "because he had one rule in flying - to end his career with an equal number of takeoffs as landings". I thought that was a good rule.

The Interview

We did finally make it to Chicago that night, but by the time I got there all the Lansing flights had been cancelled. I saw a Detroit flight still on the board and made my way quickly to that gate and had my ticket changed. I made it to Detroit sometime around 3:30 am, without my luggage of course.

I rented a car and started driving to Lansing, 90 miles away. The weather was a little iffy, but I finally arrived at my hotel at 5:30 am. My eyes were killing me because my contacts had been in for over 24 hours, and my glasses and all my contact stuff was in my suitcase (I've never flown since then without glasses and contact stuff in my carry-on). To top it off I was supposed to meet a person from the bank at 7:30 in the coffee shop and conduct an interview with them for a job they wanted in California. I had no change of clothes, no toothbrush, hairbrush...nothing. I felt like a vagrant when I showed up for the interview. She must have wondered what she was getting into.

Following the interview, I headed to the office, stopping along the way to pick up some essentials. They looked at me pretty funny when I showed up for work wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a polo shirt while everyone else was in their working best. Fortunately, my luggage arrived at the hotel late that afternoon.

Name Dropping

I made three more trips that year in June, August and November. Got to see Michigan in all four seasons and for the most part had no problems during those trips. I do remember one thing from the November trip that was kind of amusing.

I was back there again by myself and was working with some guys in the data processing area I hadn't met before. While I was there the bank was planning a big anniversary party at the Fox Theater in Lansing. I made arrangements to ride over to the party with these guys.

During the day I mentioned that I wondered if Eric would be there, the number 3 guy in the bank. Eric had been assigned to oversea our operation in California and had spent quite a bit of time in our Mission Viejo office. I knew him very well and he and I got along very well.

These guys from Lansing thought I was name-dropping and didn't believe I really knew the number 3 guy and that he knew me. I could see them rolling their eyes when I tried to explain the relationship.

That night everyone was gathered in the lobby before the event started and I was standing with the guys from Lansing when I heard my name called out. I turned around and here came Eric, pushing his way through the crowd. He shook my hand, told me he didn't realize I'd be there, and then said he wanted to introduce me to the CEO who was standing about 20 feet away. He pulled me over to the big boss, introduced us and we chatted for a couple of minutes before I returned to the guys from Lansing. Their jaws were on the floor.

I said the only thing appropriate at that point: "Told ya."

Eight Days in the Freezer

In January of 1992 I made my longest trip - 8 days - with the head of our data processing unit. Time to the conversion date was getting short and we had to go over every little item with a fine-tooth comb. I remember spending an entire weekend working in an almost empty building in Lansing. While it was 8 degrees outside, inside it felt like a sauna. One day I was melting from the heat that we couldn't turn down and decided to go outside and get some fresh air. I went out without a coat just to cool down a bit.

You cool down pretty fast when it's 8 degrees. I think I lasted about 3 minutes before I was banging on the door to get back in.

One lasting memory of that trip was of the player piano in the lobby of the Lansing Sheraton. I spent many nights in that hotel and that player piano stuck in mind because it played all these familiar tunes without ever using the sustain pedal. It was pretty annoying. They did, however, bring fresh chocolate chip cookies to the room each night.

Conversion Weekend

My final Michigan trip was President's Day weekend in February, 1992. We chose a holiday weekend for the conversion to give everybody an extra day to make sure things were working before we started handling customers.

We were switching from a company based in Fresno to the parent company in Lansing. The conversion process required the Fresno company to dump off all of our data on magnetic tapes and those tapes to be physically transported to Lansing. I was chosen for that job.

On Friday afternoon I flew from Orange County to Fresno, just ahead of an incoming storm. Saturday morning dawned cold and rainy as the storm was now covering much of Southern California. I showed up at 8am to pick up the tapes and then headed to the airport. Of course, all the flights were delayed.

I finally got out of Fresno about an hour late, flying in a very small commuter aircraft bound for LAX. There was no door between the pilots and me and I could see the weather radar which was painting an awful lot of red in the direction we were going. We bumped and bounced around, but made it into LAX, though I thought I had missed my connecting flight.

I was carrying the tapes in my suit bag which made the thing weigh probably 50 pounds. I ran all the way to my American Airlines gate and was surprised the plane was still there. The weather was delaying everything.

I was one of the last on the plane and sat down in a sweaty pile in my seat on the DC-10. Turns out we didn't leave for another 30 minutes thus pretty much ensuring I would miss the next connecting flight in Chicago.

Arriving in Chicago I found that all flights to Lansing had been cancelled because of fog in Lansing. I'd seen this movie before, so I scanned the board for a Detroit flight and got myself switched over. No luggage problems this time because I was carrying everything with me.

I arrived in Detroit, rented the biggest car I could find (a Lincoln Town Car), and started heading to Lansing. About halfway there it started to snow.

I was pretty much alone on the highway that night, but the road stayed fairly clear. I finally pulled off the freeway in Lansing, hit the brakes to slow down and promptly turned a full 360 in the Lincoln as I slid through the intersection at the end of the offramp. The freeway was fairly clear but there was ice on the offramp. Thankfully, I didn't hit anything, just gave myself a good scare.

I'm Lost

I delivered the tapes to the office and my work was done. It was early Sunday morning when I crashed at the hotel to the sound of staccato piano.

Later that afternoon I decided to do a little sightseeing around the area. I headed off into the country around Lansing, without a map, but pretty confident in my sense of direction. After a few turns in the country I wasn't feeling quite so confident. In fact, I wasn't sure how to get back to town.

It was completely overcast so I couldn't even get a bearing on the sun and the Lansing area is as flat as a pool table. I couldn't even see any distant landmarks to give me a sense of direction. The car had a phone in it and I came very close to calling 911 and pleading my ignorance.

I started driving in the direction I thought I needed to go and finally saw a sign that informed me that I was 20 miles from where I wanted to be and was headed in the wrong direction. I was never so glad to hear that tinkly Sheraton piano as I was that day.

On Monday I flew home. As the plane lifted into the overcast I remember looking down as Michigan disappeared into the mist and wondering when I would ever see that state again.

Well, now I know. We'll be there at 6pm EDT.